Jay C. Batzner (b. 1974) is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida where he teaches music composition and technology courses as well as coordinates the composition program. In his first year, Jay received two prestigious grants: one to create collaborative works with visual artist Carla Poindexter and the second to initiate electroacoustic music concerts in Orlando. Prior to this position, Jay was an active adjunct professor at several colleges in the Kansas City area while he completed his D.M.A. in Composition at the University of Missouri – Kansas City Conservatory. While at UMKC, Jay received honors including a Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship and a Dean's Doctoral Scholar Fellowship.
Jay's music ranges from instrumental chamber works to electroacoustic compositions. He has participated in numerous national and international festivals including the Wellesley Composers Conference and the International Young Composers' Meeting in the Netherlands. His music is published by Unsafe Bull Music and has been recorded on the Capstone and Vox Novus labels. Jay is a frequent contributor to the new music website Sequenza21.com and a founding member of the composers organization The Collected.
Jay is a sci-fi geek, an amateur banjoist, a home brewer, and juggler.
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3/29/2007
Hypocrisy - now with correct spelling!
I have been facing my own hypocrisy lately.
Example 1: I tell a student (actually a few) not to just repeat a single patter over and over. It smells of "drag and drop Mass Mover" Finale. Repeated patterns are fine, nothing wrong with them catagorically, but there needs to be some kind of active change happening to sustain interest.
Let's just forget that in my piano piece I have the player repeat a 1 bar pattern about 20 times. Or the end of my trumpet piece that just repeats the same 2 notes ad lib for who know how long.
Example 2: I complain to my wife that I've been copying a piece (not my own) that has no places for page turns in the parts. I manage to create page turns, but the music does not naturally have elegant spots for turns.
The score I just finished today? You guess it. Everyone will have to read from the score and, say it with me, there are NO good page turns for ANYONE. I'm going to work on it today and tomorrow and see if I can fix that.
Now, I can justify my hypocrisy in each instance. This post isn't about that. Is the nature of hypocrisy simple a matter of being human or does it come from teaching? I know I'm not the only guilty soul out there. We all say "I don't like x" and eventually we do something that seems like we liked "x" all along.
Discuss.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
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